Alex Tardy - Western States Water Council

70 Pages·2013·7 MB·English

by  Alex Tardy

National Weather Service
San Diego
NWS operational forecasting and climate applications
Alex Tardy
Warning Coordination Meteorologist

Improving Drought Prediction Workshop April 30-May 2, 2013
Our service area
10 million people served
View of operations
situational awareness
24/7 Central operations for life and property messaging and for promoting the economy
NWS field office operations
• Provide alerts (warnings, watches and advisories) to protect life threatening,
property damaging and commerce impacting weather related events in
support of the economy
• Real-time numerical weather prediction (locally and NCEP)
• Gridded digital (GIS, KML, etc) forecasts of weather parameters out to 7 days
• Downscale and collect climatological information to brief and present to
partners
• The above includes Decision Support Services for key government partners
for impacting weather that meets their needs and provides interpretation
• Conduct workshops for weather awareness and longer range outlooks for
media, government and private partners
• StormReady and TsunamiReady partner collaboration for private and public
agencies to improve communication and resilency
• Outreach at public hazard events and education for all ages
• Scientific research and technology development for infusion into operational
forecasting environment

Highlights of Operations
Types of Services for Partners
• Legacy Text Products (ZFP, FWF) to 7 days
• Spot Weather Forecast (point locations)
• Gridded Forecasts (graphics, point and click generated tables and graphs)
• Special Weather Statements and Hazardous Weather Outlooks
• Conference Calls
• Interpretive services for partner defined thresholds and specific timing and uncertainty forecast support
• Weather Story Graphics
• Headlines on the Web Page
• Email with summary of highlights
• Email with highlights and accompanying graphics (heads-up messaging out to 10 days)
• YouTube video briefings
• GoToMeeting (webinars, virtual)
• Real-time Social Media information sharing on Twitter and Facebook
• NWSchat proactive instant messaging and interactions
• Specialized partner “heads-up” messages for impact events
(Fog for US Border Patrol, Heat for County Health Departments,
Santa Ana for fire weather)
• Storm and Post-storm information sharing of impacts
• iNWS messages and Wireless Emergency Alerts
• Calls to Emergency Manager partners
Operational Observing Systems
• Radiosondes
• High vertical resolution, low time and horizontal resolution
• Surface METAR
• High horizontal and time resolution, no vertical information
• Wind profilers
• High vertical and time resolution, moderate horizontal res.
• Limited geographic coverage (primarily central U.S.)
• No thermodynamic data (RASS gives virtual temperature)
• NEXRAD VWP winds
• High time resolution, moderate horizontal resolution, variable vertical resolution
• No thermodynamic data
• Satellite
• Real-time GPS-met and GOES imagers
• Microwave data

Observation Systems
Launch weather balloon
Wind Profile
View what is going on at weather stations
Numerical Weather Prediction
(jet stream)
Strongest Jet in the
World!
Numerical Weather Prediction – short range